Does it really matter what events God used to send the flood? Isn't it sufficient
to know that God sent a global flood? The issue here is the defense of our faith.
An inaccurate interpretation of the Bible is not the truth, and geological evidence
will show that it is wrong. The inaccurate interpretation can lead people to think
that the Bible is a myth and not to be trusted. Inaccurate interpretations can turn
people away from God. This is a serious issue.
2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV)
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who
does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
An incorrect interpretation of the flood account can be directly traced to the acceptance
of uniformitarian geology, evolution, deep time, and the rejection of the Bible as a
source of truth by the scientific community. Consider the sequence of events precipitated
from a wrong interpretation.
Adam Sedgwick was one of the leading geologists of the early 1800's. He was also a trained
theologian who believed in Noah's flood. He spent much of his early research evaluating
geological sites and considering how the flood would have caused them. Apparently, he
thought of the flood as coming from two sources of additional water as a commentary of his day described.
It appears that an immense quantity of waters occupied the centre of the
antediluvian earth; and as these burst forth by the order of God, the
circumambient strata must sink. . . By the opening of the windows of
heaven is probably meant the precipitating all the aqueous vapours
which were suspended in the whole atmosphere (Clarke, 1831).
As Sedgwick examined the geological evidence, much of it did not fit with a flood caused by
waters coming from fountains and rain. That type of flood would produce great washing of sediments
downward, but not the thousands of feet of sedimentary layers seen all over the earth, and not
sediments on the tops of mountains. Eventually, the geological evidence convinced him to change
his mind. When he stepped down from being the president of the London Geological Society, he
recanted his view of the flood.
Our errors were, however, natural, and after the same kind which led
many excellent observers of a former century to refer all the secondary
formations of geology to the Noachian deluge. Having been myself a believer,
and, to the best of my power, a propagator of what I now regard as a
philosophic heresy, and having more than once been quoted for opinions I
do not now maintain, I think it right, as one of my last acts before I quit
this Chair, thus publicly to read my recantation.
We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian
theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the
Mosaic flood. (Clark, 1890)
Up to this point, Sedgwick had been the strongest opponent of Lyell and his view of uniformitarian
geology with deep time. However, with his recantation, he no longer had evidence to oppose Lyell's
hypothesis, and it became widely accepted.
Sedgwick taught geology at the University of Cambridge, and one of his students assisted him in
his field research on flood geology. That student was Charles Darwin. There is no doubt that
Sedgwick's dismissal of Noah's flood impacted Darwin's thinking. Darwin sent geological samples
back to Sedgwick from his journey to the Galapagos. While Sedgwick opposed Darwinian evolution,
his rejection of the flood left him with no evidence to refute it.
The Geological Record
Adam Sedgwick and other geologists of his time did not find evidence for a flood initiated
by water fountains and rain. Modern geologists have come to the same conclusion. "Flood geology
contradicts the scientific consensus in geology and paleontology . . . and the scientific
community considers it to be pseudoscience." "The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by
scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community." (Wikipedia, 2013)
However, this conclusion is largely based on a flood caused by water fountains and rain. Is
there geological evidence for a flood caused by volcanos, meteorites and rain?
The flood was an extinction event that destroyed and buried untold billions of animals. The
evidence for mass extinction is abundant in the geological layers. Scientists find fossils in
one layer and none in the layers above it. This indicates that nearly all life and many species
were entirely wiped out. Since they see that same sequence in various layers, they perceive
several mass extinction events where the Biblical record indicates that most, if not all,
extinction events were from the flood.
What do scientists see as the cause for these mass extinctions? The two main culprits are
always either meteorite impacts or super volcanos, or both.
All mass extinction events are correlated with major eruptions, said Paul Renne, a geologist
who specializes in figuring out the age of rocks at the Berkeley Geochronology Center in
California. But the significance of volcanic eruptions in wiping out major groups of organisms
has been pushed aside in favor of hypotheses that hold asteroid impacts responsible. (Lee, 2013)
The Biblical flood account describes both fountains of great deep erupting (volcanos) and
windows to space opening (meteorite impacts) causing a global flood that caused these
extinctions. The geological record discovered by scientists completely agrees with the
volcanos and meteorite impacts described in Genesis.
This page is in development 2/11/2014
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Copyright 2014 Mark Amunrud. All rights reserved.
